Today’s the day that the lucky people of America get Henry Selick’s Coraline in their cinemas, in both 2D and 3D flavours. Tomorrow is the day we all get to know how well it is doing.

And that’s a big question, even bigger than usual, because not only is Coraline the very first feature film from Laika productions, the entire studio has been placed into… erm… suspended animation while their financial situation is assessed. In December, pre-production was underway on their likely second film – the naffly named bluebird odyssey Jack and Ben’s Animated Adventure – and ten others were in various stages of development (Here Be Monsters and The Wall and the Wing being previously announced), but unfortunately, most of the workforce were laid off and all formal development slowed to snailish pace.